North Carolina Project Shows Long-Term Benefits

One of the better known of those studies is the Abecedarian Early Childhood Intervention Project. It began in the 1970s at the FPG Child Development Institute (FPG) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.    

A recent benefit-cost analysis of the long-running research program concluded that taxpayers can expect four dollars in benefits for every dollar spent on high-quality early education programs.    

The researchers' benefit-cost analysis found:    

• Children in high-quality programs are projected to make roughly $143,000 more over their lifetimes than those who didn't take part in the program.
• Mothers of children who were enrolled can also expect greater earnings - about $133,000 more over their lifetimes.    
• School districts can expect to save more than $11,000 per child because participants are less likely to require special or remedial education.

Other Major Findings

• Children who participated in the early intervention program had higher cognitive test scores from the toddler years to age 21.
• Academic achievement in both reading and math was higher from the primary grades through young adulthood.
• Intervention children completed more years of education and were more likely to attend a four-year college.
• Intervention children were older, on average, when their first child was born.
• The cognitive and academic benefits from this program are stronger than for most other early childhood programs.
• Enhanced language development appears to have been instrumental in raising cognitive test scores.
• Mothers whose children participated in the program achieved higher educational and employment status than mothers whose children were not in the program. These results were especially pronounced for teen mothers.

The Abecedarian Project was a carefully controlled scientific study of the potential benefits of early childhood education for poor children. Children from low-income families received full-time, high-quality educational intervention in a childcare setting from infancy through age 5 and their progress was monitored over time with follow-up studies conducted at ages 12, 15, and 21.